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Border area between Nepal and China where 33 Australians are missing still almost entirely cut off

Majority of missing Australians were near Gyirong Port minutes before impact. Rescuers say the area is now destroyed, covered in metres of silt and debris

It has been almost a week since the catastrophic floods in Nepal and not even a vehicle can get into the area where the majority of missing Australians were last heard from.

Gyirong Port, the border area between Nepal and China, was the first to be hit. Images from Chinese rescue teams who have managed to get in by helicopter or hiking show the area has been completely flattened. The immigration building, the power lines, everything, just wiped away.

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© Photograph: Lhasa fire and rescue mobile detachment/Xinhua/AP

© Photograph: Lhasa fire and rescue mobile detachment/Xinhua/AP

© Photograph: Lhasa fire and rescue mobile detachment/Xinhua/AP

Nepal rescuers race to reach hundreds feared trapped in hydropower tunnels

Workers thought to be stuck in underground areas at 11 sites after last week’s devastating flash floods

Rescue teams are working to reach more than 900 missing hydropower workers, hundreds of whom are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 12 hydropower projects in Nepal after the devastating flash floods, ​the ⁠country’s disaster ​management authority has said.

The death toll from the ⁠unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud ​and debris on Wednesday last week has risen to 939 people, with 16 more dead reported in Tibet. More than 4,400 are missing on the two sides of the border.

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© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

Nepal rescuers race to reach hundreds feared trapped in hydropower tunnels

Workers thought to be stuck in underground areas at 11 sites after last week’s devastating flash floods

Rescue teams are working to reach more than 900 missing hydropower workers, hundreds of whom are feared trapped in the tunnels and underground areas of 12 hydropower projects in Nepal after the devastating flash floods, ​the ⁠country’s disaster ​management authority has said.

The death toll from the ⁠unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud ​and debris on Wednesday last week has risen to 939 people, with 16 more dead reported in Tibet. More than 4,400 are missing on the two sides of the border.

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© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Prime Minister Secretariat, Nepal/AFP/Getty Images

Renee was at Gyirong Port minutes before flood struck, now her family want to travel from Australia to help search

Missing woman’s partner and daughters fundraise to join search in one of the hardest-hit areas of Nepal

Clair Spry says her sister would hate the attention. She would want it focused on the Nepali people, who have been displaced or are in need of aid. She would want it to be on the impact of the climate crisis, especially on the world’s most economically vulnerable populations.

“Her focus right now would not be on her; it would be on the families,” Spry said. “So many people, the Nepalese people, that have been horribly displaced and traumatised. She would want the attention on them and how we are going to help them.

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© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Xinhua/Shutterstock

Families balance hope and despair in race to find survivors in Nepal as 41 Australians still missing

The walls of a teaching hospital are filled with pictures of unidentified victims as authorities collect DNA samples and plan burials before morgues fill up

Some of them are young, some old; most of them appear to be men. Some of them could be sleeping, except for the mud that covers their bodies. Some, it seems, would be impossible to recognise even if you knew them well.

Every few hours Nepalese authorities hang pictures of the deceased, who have not been identified, on a wall at the back of a teaching hospital in Kathmandu.

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© Photograph: Ghanashyam Shrestha/JNA/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ghanashyam Shrestha/JNA/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Ghanashyam Shrestha/JNA/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

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